New Negro All. v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U.S. 552 (1938)
Case details
Citation
303 U.S. 552
Full caption
NEW NEGRO ALLIANCE v. SANITARY GROCERY CO.
Country
United States
Jurisdiction
Federal
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided
Mar. 28, 1938
Majority
Roberts (Justice)
Dissent
Mc Reynolds (Justice)
NEW NEGRO ALLIANCE v. SANITARY GROCERY
CO.*
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
No. 511. Argued March 2, 3, 1938.—Decided March 28, 1938.
An association of Negroes, organized for the mutual improvement of its members and the promotion of civic, educational, benevolent, and charitable enterprises, requested a Grocery Company to adopt a policy of employing Negro clerks, in the course of personnel changes, in certain stores of the company patronized largely by colored people but in which no colored clerks were employed. The request was ignored; whereupon the organization caused a picket,
*
The opinion herein is reported as amended by Order of April 25, 1938, see 304 U. S.
bearing a placard reading “Do Your Part! Buy Where You Can Work! No Negroes Employed Here!” to patrol in front of one of the stores, on one day, and caused, or threatened to cause, a similar patrol of two other stores. Held:
1. That, within the meaning of the Act of Mar. 23, 1932, § 13; 29 U. S. C., § 113—the “Norris-LaGuardia Act”—there was a “labor dispute” in which the Negro organization and its officers were “persons interested.” P. 559.
The fact that the dispute was “racial,” in that it grew from racial discrimination, does not remove the case from the scope of the Act.
2. Under §§ 4 and 7 of the Act, the District Court was without jurisdiction to issue an injunction in the promises, against the Negro organization and its officers at the suit of the Grocery Company. P. 561. 92 F. 2d 510, reversed.
Certi orar i, 302 U. S. 679, to review the affirmance of a decree enjoining the présent petitioner from picketing, boycotting, etc. the stores of the respondent. The case was decided below on bill and answer.
Messrs. Belford V. Lawson, Jr. and Thurman L. Dodson, with whom Mr. Théodore M. Berry was on the brief, for petitioners.
Mr. A. Coulter Wells, with whom Mr. William E. Carey, Jr. was on the brief, for respondent.
The court below properly held that the matter in controversy herein was not comprehended by the Labor Disputes Act of March 23, 1932, Green v. Samuelson, 168 Md. 421 ; Beck-Hazard Shoe Corp. n . Johnson, 274 N. Y. Supp. 946.
The relationship of employer and employée must exist, or a dispute must grow out of that relationship, before the Labor Disputes Act has application. United Electric Coal Companies v. Rice, 80 F. 2d 1 ; Keith Theatre v. Vachon, 187 A. 692.
Petitioners, having admitted the act of picketing the stores of the respondent, were properly enjoined by the p. 554trial court. Jonas Gloss Co. v. Gloss Bottle Blowers’ Assn., 72 N. J. Eq. 653; Pierce v. Stablemen’s Union, 165 Cal. 70; American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U. S. 184; Elkind & Sons v. Retail Clerks I. Protective Assn., 169 A. 494; Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U. S. 312; Beck v. Teamsters’ Protective Union, 118 Mich. 520.
The proposition is well established that a combination looking towards the domination or ruination of the business of another by fraud, violence or coercion is fundamentally unlawful. Waitr esses Union v. Benish Restaurant Co., 6 F. 2d 568; Kinloch Téléphoné Co. v. Local Union No. 2, 275 F. 241; Quinlivan v. Dail-Overland Co., 274 F. 56.
Mr . Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court.
The matter in controversy is whether the case made by the pleadings involves or grows out of a labor dispute within the meaning of § 13 of the Norris-La Guardia Act.1
The respondent, by bill filed in the District Court of the District of Columbia, sought an injunction restraining the petitioners and their agents from picketing its stores and engaging in other activities injurious to its business. The petitioners answered, the cause was heard upon bill and answer, and an injunction was awarded. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the decree.2 The importance of the question presented and asserted conflict with the decisions of this and other fédéral courts moved us to grant certiorari.
1
Act of .March 23, 1932, c. 90, 47 Stat. 70, 73, U. S. C. Tit. 29. § H3.
2
67 App. D. C. 359; 92 F. (2d) 510.
552 Opinion of the Court .
As the case was heard upon the bill and a verified answer the facts upon which decision must rest are those set forth in the bill and admitted or not denied by the answer and those affirmatively set up in the answer.
The following facts alleged in the bill are admitted by the answer. Respondent, a Delaware corporation, opérâtes 255 retail grocery, méat, and vegetable stores, a warehouse and a bakery in the District of Columbia and employs both white and colored persons. April 3, 1936, it opened a new store at 1936 Eleventh Street, N. W., installing personnel having an acquaintance with the trade in the vicinity. Petitioner, The New Negro Alliance, is a corporation composed of colored persons, organized for the mutual improvement of its members and the promotion of civic, educational, benevolent, and charitable enterprises. The individual petitioners are officers of the corporation. The relation of employer and employés does not exist between the respondent and the petitioners or any of them. The petitioners are not engaged in any business compétitive with that of the respondent, and the officers, members, or représentatives of the Alliance are not engaged in the same business or occupation as the respondent or its employés.
As to other matters of fact, the state of the pleadings may be briefly summarized. The bill asserts: the petitioners hâve made arbitrary and summary demands upon the respondent that it engage and employ colored persons in managerial and sales positions in the new store and in various other stores; it is essential to the conduct of the business that respondent employ experienced persons in its stores and compliance with the arbitrary demands of
défendants would involve the discharge of white employés and their replacement with colored; it is impérative that respondent be free in the sélection and control of persons employed by it without interférence by the petitioners
or others; petitioners hâve written respondent letters threatening boycott and ruination of its business and notices that by means of announcements, meetings and advertising the petitioners will circulate statements that respondent is unfair to colored people and to the colored race and, contrary to fact, that respondent does not employ colored persons; respondent has not acceded to these demands. The answer admits the respondent has not acceded to the petitioners’ demands, but déniés the other allégations and states that the Alliance and its agents hâve requested only that respondent, in the regular course of personnel changes in its retail stores, give employment to Negroes as clerks, particularly in stores patronized largely by colored people; that the petitioners hâve not requested the discharge of white employés nor sought action which would involve their discharge. It déniés the making of the threats described and allégés the only représentations threatened by the Alliance or its authorized agents are true représentations that named stores of the respondent do not employ Negroes as sales persons and that the petitioners hâve threatened no more than the use of lawful and peaceable persuasion of members of the community to withhold patronage from particular stores after the respondent’s refusai to acknowledge petitioner’s requests that it adopt a policy of employing Negro clerks in such stores in the regular course of personnel changes.
The bill further allégés that the petitioners and their authorized représentatives “hâve unlawfully conspired with each other to picket, patrol, boycott, and ruin the Plaintiff’s business in said stores, and particularly in the store located at 1936 Eleventh Street, Northwest” and, “in an effort to fulfill their threats of coercion and intimidation, actually hâve caused the said store to be picketed or patrolled during hours of business of the plaintiff, by their members, représentatives, officers, agents, servants, p. 557and employées” ; the pickets carrying large placards charging respondent with being unfair to Negroes and reading: “Do your Part! Buy Where You Can Work! No Negroes Employed Here!” for the purpose of intimidating and coercing prospective customers from entering the respondent’s store until the respondent accèdes to the petitioners’ demands. “Said défendants, their pickets or patrols or some of them hâve jostled and collided with persons in front of the said store and hâve physically hindered, obstructed, interfered with, delayed, molested, and harassed persons desiring to enter the place of business of the Plaintiff Corporation; said pickets, or some of them, hâve attempted to dissuade and prevent persons from entering plaintiff’s place of business; said défendants, their pickets or patrols are disorderly while picketing or patrolling, and attract crowds to gather in front of said. stdre, and encourage the crowds or membOrs thereof to become disorderly, and to harass, and otherwise annoy, interfère with and attempt to dissuade, and to prevent persons from entering the place of business of the plaintiff, the disorder thereby preventing the proper conduct of and operation of the plaintiff’s business. Defendants hâve threatened to use similar tactics of picketing and patrolling as aforesaid in front of the several other stores of the plaintiff.” Four photographs alleged to portray the picketing are annexed as exhibits to the bill. One of them shows a man carrying a sandwich placard on the sidewalk and no one else within the range of the caméra. In another, two children are seen beside the picket; in another, two adults; in the fourth, one adult entering respondent’s store at a distance from the picket and without apparent interférence. The answer déniés ail these allégations save that it admits the petitioners did, during April 4, 1936, and at no other time, cause the store at 1936 Eleventh Street, N. W., to be continuously picketed by a single person carrying a placard exhibiting p. 558the words quoted by the bill; and the petitioners, prior to the acts complained of in the bill, picketed, or expressed the intention of picketing, two other stores. It admits that the photographs correctly represent the picketing of April 4, 1936. The answer avers the information carried on the placards was true, was not intended to, and did not in fact, intimidate customers; there was no physical obstruction, interférence or harassment of anyone desiring to enter the store; there was no disorderly conduct, and the picketing did not cause or encourage crowds to gather in front of the store.
The bill states: “As evidence of the widespread and concerted action planned by the Défendants herein, they hâve caused to be placed or hâve permitted to appear in the Washington Tribune . . . the foliowing statements . . .” There follow quotations from articles appearing in the newspaper purporting to report meetings of the Alliance and speeches made thereat. There is no statement that the facts reported in the articles are true. The answer déniés that any of the petitioners is connected with or exercises any control over the Washington Tribune or caused or permitted that newspaper to publish any article or news item whatsoever or in any way acted in concert with the newspaper in those publications.
The bill asserts that petitioners and their représentatives, officers, and agents, unlawfully conspired to picket, boycott, and ruin the respondent’s business in its stores, particularly the store at 1936 Eleventh Street. This is denied by the answer.
The bill says that the described conduct of petitioners will continue until respondent compiles with petitioners’ demands ; is and will continue to be dangerous to the life and health of persons on the highway, to property thereon, and to respondent’s employés, its property, and business and will cause respondent irréparable in jury; the petitioners’ acts are unlawful, constitute a conspiracy in p. 559restraint of trade, and, if continued, will ruin the respondent’s business. The answer déniés these allégations so far as they constitute assertions of fact.
The case, then, as it stood for judgment, was this: The petitioners requested the respondent to adopt a policy of employing Negro clerks in certain of its stores in the course of personnel changes; the respondent ignored the request and the petitioners caused one person to patrol in front of one of the respondent’s stores on one day carrying a placard which said: “Do Your Part! Buy Where You Can Work! No Negroes Employed Here!” and caused or threatened a similar patrol of two other stores of respondent. The information borne by the placard was true. The patrolling did not coerce or intimidate respondent’s customers; did not physically obstruct, interfère with, or harass persons desiring to enter the store, the picket acted in an orderly manner, and his conduct did not cause crowds to gather in front of the store.
The trial judge was of the view that the laws relating to labor disputes had no application to the case. He entered a decree enjoining the petitioners and their agents and employés from picketing or patrolling any of the respondent’s stores, boycotting or urging others to boycott respondent; restraining them, whether by inducements, threats, intimidation or actual or threatened physical force from hindering any person entering respondent’s places of business, from destroying or damaging or threatening to destroy or damage respondent’s property and from aiding or abetting others in doing any of the prohibited things. The Court of Appeals thought that the dispute was not a labor dispute within the Norris-LaGuardia Act because it did not involve terms and conditions of employaient such as wages, hours, unionization or betterment of working conditions, and that the trial court, therefore, had jurisdiction to issue the injunction. We think the conclusion that the dispute was not a labor dispute p. 560within the meaning of the Act, because it did not involve terms and conditions of employment in the sense of wages, hours, unionization or betterment of working conditions is erroneous.
Subsection (a) of § 13 provides: “A case shall be held to involve or to grow ont of a labor dispute when the case involves persons who are engaged in the same industry, trade, craft, or occupation; or hâve direct or indirect interests therein; ... or when the case in volves any conflicting or competing interests in a ‘labor dispute’ (as hereinafter defined) of ‘persons participating or interested’ therein (as hereinafter defined).” Subsection (b) characterizes a person or association as participating or interested in a labor dispute “if relief is sought against him or it and if he or it . . . has a direct or indirect interest therein, . . .” Subsection (c) defines the term “labor dispute” as including “any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment, . . . regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employée.” These définitions plainly embrace the controversy which gave rise to the instant suit and classify it as one arising out of a dispute defined as a labor dispute. They leave no doubt that The New Negro Alliance and the individual petitioners are, in contemplation of the Act, persons interested in the dispute.3 In quoting the clauses of § 13 we hâve omitted those that deal with disputes between employers and employés and disputes between associations of persons engaged in a particular trade or craft, and employers in the same industry. It is to be noted, however, that the inclusion in the définitions of such disputes, and the persons interested in them, serves to emphasize the fact that the quoted portions were intended to embrace p. 561controversies other than those between employers and employés; between labor unions seeking to represent employés and employers; and between persons seeking employment and employers.
The Act does not concern itself with the background or the motives of the dispute. The desire for fair and équitable conditions of employment on the part of persons of any race, color, or persuasion, and the removal of discriminations against them by reason of their race or religious beliefs is quite as important to those concemed as fairness and equity in terms and conditions of employment can be to trade or craft unions or any form of labor organization or association. Race discrimination by an employer may reasonably be deemed more unfair and less excusable than discrimination against workers on the ground of union affiliation. There is no justification in the apparent purposes or the express terms of the Act for limiting its définition of labor disputes and cases arising therefrom by excluding those which arise with respect to discrimination in terms and conditions of employment based upon différences of race or color.
The purpose and policy of the Act respecting the jurisdiction of the fédéral courts is set forth in §§ 4 and 7. The former deprives those courts of jurisdiction to issue an injunction against, inter dlia, giving publicity to the existence of, or the facts involved in, any labor dispute, whether by advertising, speaking, patrolling, or by any other method not involving fraud or violence ; against assembling peaceably to act or to organize to act in promotion of interests in a labor dispute; against advising or notifying any person of an intention to do any of the acts specified; against agreeing with other persons to do any of the acts specified.4 Section 7 deprives the p. 562courts of jurisdiction to issue an injunction in any case involving or growing out of a labor dispute, except after hearing sworn testimony in open court in support of the allégations of the complaint, and upon findings of fact to the effect (a) that unlawful acts hâve been threatened and will be committed unless restrained, or hâve been committed and will be continued, unless restrained, and then only against the person or persons, association or organization making the threat or permitting the unlawful act or authorizing or ratifying it; (b) that substantial and irréparable injury to complainant’s property will follow; (c) that, as to each item of relief granted, greater in jury will be inflicted upon the complainant by déniai of the relief than will be inflicted on the défendant by granting it; (d) that complainant has no adéquate remedy at law, and (e) that the public officers charged with the duty to protect complainant’s property are unable or unwilling to furnish adéquate protection.5 The legislative history of the Act demonstrates that it was the purpose of the Congress further to extend the prohibitions of the Clayton Act® respecting the exercise of jurisdiction by fédéral courts and to obviate the results of the judicial construction of that Act.7 It was intended that peaceful and orderly dissémination of information by those defined as persons interested in a labor dispute concerning “terms and conditions of employment” in an industry or a plant or a place of business should be lawful ; that, short of fraud, breach of the
4
U. S. C. Tit. 29, § 104. 53383°—38----- 36
6 U. S. C. Tit. 29, § 107. 8 Act of Oct. 15, 1914, c. 323, § 20, 38 Stat. 730, 738, U. S. C. Tit. 29, § 52.
''Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443; American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U. S. 184. Compare House Report No. 669, 72nd Cong., lst Sess., and Senate Report 1060, 71st Cong., 2nd Sess., and Senate Report 163, 72nd Cong., lst Sess.
552 Mc Reyn old s , J., dissenting.
peace, violence, or conduct otherwise unlawful, those having a direct or indirect interest in such terms and conditions of employment should be at liberty to advertise and disseminate facts and information with respect to terms and conditions of employment, and peacefully to persuade others to concur in their views respecting an employer’s practices.8 The District Court erred in not complying with the provisions of the Act.
The decree must be reversed and the cause remanded to the District Court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
Reversed.
Mr . Justi ce Cardozo took no part in the considération or decision of this case.
Mr . Justice Mc Reynolds , dissenting.
Mr . Justi ce Butl er and I cannot accept the view that a “labor dispute” emerges whenever an employer fails to respond to a communication from A, B and C—irrespective of their race, character, réputation, fitness, previous or présent employment—suggesting displeasure because of his choice of employés and their expectation that in the future he will not fail to select men of their complexion.
It seems unbelievable that, in ail such circumstances, Congress intended to inhibit courts from extending protection long guaranteed by law and thus, in effect, encourage mobbish interférence with the individual’s liberty of action. Under the tortured meaning now attributed to the words “labor dispute,” no employer—merchant, manufacturer, builder, cobbler, housekeeper or what not—who
8 Compare Senn v. Tile Loyers Union, 301 U. S. 468; Levering & Garrigues Co. v. Morrin, 71 F. (2d) 284; Cinderella Theatre Co. v. Sign Writers’ Local, 6 F. Supp. 164; Miller Fumiture Co. v. Fumiture Workers Union, 8 F. Supp. 209.
Counsel for Parties. 303 U. S.
prefers helpers of one color or class can find adéquate safeguard against intolérable violations of his freedom if members of some other class, religion, race or color demand that he give them precedence.*
Design thus to promote strife, encourage trespass and stimulate intimidation, ought not to be admitted where, as here, not plainly avowed. The ultimate resuit of the view now approved to the very people whom présent petitioners claim to represent, it may be, is prefigured by the grievous plight of minorities in lands where the law has become a mere political instrument.
*
See—définition of Dispute, Webster’s New International Dictionary; 29 U. S. C., § 113 (c); Senate Report No. 163, 72nd Congress, Ist Session, pp. 7, 11, 25; House Report No. 669, 72nd Congress, Ist Session, pp. 3, 7, 8, 10, 11.